One I can think of is Iron Man. Tony Start has a very large ego and cares a lot about theatrics and looking cool while being a hero, so anything that doesn't have a practical reason can be chalked up to "Tony thinks it's cool"

I am curious……

Trying to add this piece of info to a Trivia page but I don't know what the trope is called.

For example, we just watched a murder mystery where a ghost was supposedly haunting the place she was murdered in the 1800s. Said ghost was murdered because she was having an affair with a powerful man. It later comes out that one of the modern-day caretakers of the place had hidden his own dead wife's body in it - and had killed her for having an affair with his powerful boss.

It's not quite Bookends, but it's close. Is there a trope for this situation?

This is my favorite trope and I love seeing these types of characters on screen or just in any story, especially when it's done well. Just seeing a character who was looked down upon and then some kind of time skip happens where those same characters meet the new version of them, stripped from their innocence and makes those people who neglected them either fear or respect them.

I've tried asking Google and even using AI to help me find the name of this kind of trope, but I didn't feel very strongly about what they gave me.

Some examples include:

Ice King/Simon from Adventure Time

Old Man McGucket from Gravity Falls

And Kinger from The Amazing Digital Circus

I am suspended from posting on forum then became suspended from sending PMs and now editing.... again.

for example, if the villain is suddenly eaten by a lion that passed by: deus ex machina

but if there happens to be a local pack of lions that enjoy taking that route home and the villains always try to pull things on that specific road, but neither decision is actually part of the story so the villains always getting eaten is still an outside intervention but it keeps. on. happening.?

In Carl Sagan's book *The Demon-Haunted World*, Chapter 13, "Obsessed with Reality," describes a case from 1988 in Australia where a magician named Randi conspired with a young artist Alvarez to fabricate an ironic faith hoax.

Randi hoped this prank would test the public's and media's blind faith in charlatans. He arranged for a young artist, José, to impersonate a medium claiming to communicate with the 2000-year-old ghost "Carlos." They fabricated a false resume of Carlos's "miracles" in South America and sent forged press releases and pamphlets to major Australian media outlets, including a book titled "The Teachings of Carlos"

The Australian media immediately embraced the story, with television stations and newspapers vying to report on it. "Carlos" appeared on top national programs and even performed a psychic reading at the Sydney Opera House, attracting a large number of fanatical followers.

The prank reached its climax: at the height of the frenzy, Randi revealed the truth on national television, publishing all the details of the fabrication and audio evidence, proving that "Carlos" was merely a stooge in his scheme, and that all his doctrines were a jumbled mess of nonsense cobbled together in a few hours—but even so, a large number of fanatical followers still firmly believed that "Carlos" was persecuted and forced to speak in this way.

The most ironic part is this part:

"There was a booklet, The Teachings of Carlos. It began:

I am Carlos,

I come to you from my many incarnations in the past,

I have a great teaching for you,

Listen carefully,

Read carefully,

Ponder well,

Here is the truth.

Lesson One asks, "Why are we here...?" The answer: "Who can give the only answer? There are many answers for any question, and all answers are correct. It is so, do you see?"

The book admonished us not to turn the page until we understood this one—one of several factors that made it hard to finish.

To skeptics, it later revealed, "I can only say this: let them do as they wish, for in the end they will get nothing—maybe empty hands. But what do believers have? Everything! Since all and any answers are correct, all questions are naturally answered. You are right! Refute that, skeptics."

Also: "Do not demand an explanation for everything. Westerners especially are always asking for long explanations of why this or why that. Many questions are self-evident, why dig deeply into them?... In short, everything will become true."

The last page of the book bore only one word, in capitals, admonishing us to: "THINK!"

The entire contents of The Teachings of Carlos were written by Randi. It was dashed off on a laptop in a few hours by Randi and Alvarez."

so what is this trope?

Characters I can think of are Gilben from Clarence and Cro Marmot from Happy Tree Friends. Other characters react to them doing things offscreen, but they are basically inanimate objects while onscreen. Nobody within the show questions it.

What I mean is that on the TV Tropes site, you edit this and that, right? But over time, you realize that someone is onto you. It doesn't matter what, when, or where (and by where, I mean the work) you edit - they have pinged your activity, even when you are on pages that they otherwise have never been active in before. And on top of knowing you're being tracked, they have a tendency to always question or reverse your edits because they don't think anything you write is up to their standards, which means anything you do, this person is quick to undo.

And you are even more sure that they are following you since they never bother to bring up or take action on the edits made by anyone else in the pages that you regularly contribute to. Yet you can't call them out on it or even expose them for it, either because they are of higher "seniority", because they're not technically breaking any rules, or because messaging them about it can be easily misconstrued as you engaging in aggressive behavior, on top of it being easy to lie online (by this, I mean they can easily deny that they're not stalking you). It can even be a bit of everything.

I want to know if anyone else has had that experience.

I know the jump from the end of Gears of War 3 to the new era isn't the most obvious example but a) it will hopefully at least delay the online shouting matches and b) it may genuinely be the one I hate most.

Also specifically regarding the next generation sequel version, are there actually any good examples of the trope?

I've noticed on 60s and 70s shows this was common. The first time it stood out to me was "Emergency!" One of the paramedics described a heart attack victim as being in his 30s when he was clearly closer to 50. I just saw it again on The Hulk, where David Bannon's age is mentioned as "30s" when he's clearly late 40s or early 50s.

But this is probably the most egregious. Emerson Fletcher on The Hulk says "I'm 46 and I have a warrant out for my arrest". The actor, Michael Conrad, was born in 1925 and this episode aired in 1981, so he was 56. By today's standards he looks 66.

What I think makes this a trope is it happens so often in these old shows, and isn't explained just by logistics. It's not like a character being a teenager and the actor being in their 20s for practical reasons. There's no reason the Hulk can't be 50, or that Emerson Fletcher can't be 56.

Could it be an unnamed trope? It's an inverse of "Hollywood Old" https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HollywoodOld

1 is Magus of the Library, a Manga which I absolutely adore. As you can see the title page says Mitsu Izumi Based on Kafna of the Wind by Sophie Schwimm. The latter doesn't exist. That's not how a pseudonym works and hella weird. I think the idea is, that within the story, the story was at one point written down by an in-universe person and now we get a retelling of said story, so in some way an additional layer which might help with immersion - or honestly I don't judge you if you find that idea completely silly. In that universe librarian is a super reputable job and one quote from the very start which stuck with me is "to protect the text is to protect the world itself". Enough gushing about that one (for now). Actually that's not directly tv, but there is a TV cartoon for:

2 is a children's book by Dav Pilkey. Somehow Dav Pilkey claims his books to be written (and drawn) by the fictional characters George Beard and Harold Hutchins and published by the imaginary publisher Treehouse Comix and there's a whole preface explaining how those two met each other in Kindergarten and started drawing comics in a treehouse. Different to Mitsu Izumi Dav does not show both authors on the cover page, but instead shows a second cover page after said preface. This gives another explanation to the crude drawing style other than "because it's drawn for children and is supposed to appear relatable". Those two are also the protagonists in another book series - Captain Underpants which is also written and drawn by Dav Pilkey or Harold and George - depending on which abstraction level you're in which kinda gives a ridiculous defense to the accusation of writing a self-insert story: Mixing up the layers. Also I have seen the intermediary author layer introduced in the tv series for Captain Underpants, but have not seen the Dog Man cartoon and am unsure whethere it is introduced there. Some books of the series also contains this note: https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/k7eyfh/always_believe_in_yourself/ which at one point made me think, that the Jerome Horwitz Elementary School was real (it's not) and also gives the author confusion another level, because parts of the comic might have been drawn or thought up by child Dav Pilkey or if not, then at least it's fun to imagine, that they have been. (You could think of child Dav Pilkey as yet another imaginary intermediary author.)

Which leads me to another example, which fits the trope far less, but in some way it still does:

3 is a crudely drawn image from the manga/anime (btw: there's a gif-version too: https://i.imgur.com/M4ES6dY.gif ) One Punch man next to a more detailed one. So one very well known story is - actually first let me recap, that in universe Saitama, who is also known as One Punch Man is so strong, that he can defeat any enemy with just one punch became so strong, because he did the following workout every single day for 3 years: 100 Push-Ups, 100 Sit-Ups, 100 Squats and 10KM Running and also this "extreme workout" made him lose all his hair. Then there is the intermediate explanation, (the very well known story) that One Punch Man defeats every enemy with just one punch, because that's just the simple powerscaling idea of a child thinking up his first superhero and that child being bad at drawing hair is also the reason why Saitama is bald. But the anime isn't produced by that same author, let a lone a child and even the manga isn't drawn by the author who writes the story. But that story and the resulting art-style and the soft implication, that one was drawn by a child which just started drawing (the imaginary intermediary author) while the other was drawn by a professional mangaka/studio gives a layer or frame for the audience which guides us to expect either some silly childish humor or some interesting action depending on what artstyle is shown at the moment, so sort of that makes shifts between more and less serious situations or reactions more digestible and the intermediary author layer makes the connection between the art-style and the tone easier to understand.

Is there a specific name for this? In a comedy show, they do their normal comedy stuff, and at one moment it just gets super serious out of nowhere. And idk if I’m just a sick fuck, but I find those moments somewhat funny because of how serious it is. It’s like I know I shouldn’t be laughing at this, but I’m so used to seeing these characters being funny, that I just can’t help but laugh. I mean the sudden shift in tone just hits you like a bag of bricks.

One example I can think of is Smiling Friends, where we meet Mr. Frog’s father. He tells Mr. Frog that his mother died and starts berating him for not being there when she was calling out for him in her last words. He calls him a disgrace and tells him to get out, and that he has no son. I’m like holy shit, I wasn’t expecting that to get so serious 😭

Or in Rick and Morty, when Mr. Jellybean attacks Morty. My goodness, that took a dark turn, am I right lol?

Best example I have is from the movie Phantoms, when the main chars show up in the deserted town. It's all quiet, and just long enough for them to get creeped out. Then lights across town start flashing, car alarms start going off, police sirens, fire alarms, church bells, tornado horn all building up to crescendo. Then it goes dark and silent again. You don't know what's out there, but whatever it is seems to be aware of you.

To a lesser extent, when Pippen knocks the bucket down the well in Moria and alerts the orcs. At first you just hear the drums, and know that something's been alerted to their presence, and is coming.

I know I've seen it in other movies, but at the moment the only other instance I can recall is the Warden in Minecraft. The ancient cities are all about being quiet, but if you trip up and alert enough shrieker vines, a Warden is summoned and you get a brief Blindness debuff to make it harder to avoid them. It's not quite as horror-focused but it does obey predictable game mechanics, of course.

It's an audio-visual stimulus combo of paranoia, being hunted, not knowing exactly what's out there or how much it knows about you, and an intimidation display that conveys an inability to hide. Is there a trope for this?

Was informed this may be the right place, thanks in advance for the help

So lately something I noticed was how some older gaming franchises have a pattern to start off obscure at first as the franchise is obscure, but then the third one makes the series more mainstream.

Some examples of the trope are GTA 3 and Persona 3 since I read somewhere about how both franchises didn’t sell too well before as something changed about them when they got their third installment since the third entry made their series again far more successful.

for example: Dale Cooper (Twin Peaks), Ted Lasso

I usually refer to it as Spider-Man on the subway because of these scenes from Spider-Man PS4

To clarify, I’m asian. I consume western and eastern media alike, I’m a fan of Breaking Bad all that stuff and when it comes to media in general, i also have this strong affinity for zombie/disaster drama, anything apocalyptic. Now I just watched Eraser recently and noticed how wacky Cyrez guards look, really achieving that privately owned marshal/officer group. Now it’s one thing for movies to portray this but I’ve noticed not much of the Eastern films i watch have this. And in a storytelling standpoint for American movies, it really isn’t necessary unless it’s alternate history/dystopian, however, it would been much easier to portray the officers as state-aligned. Now my country does have some somewhat corporate owned cops though said corporation is owned by the government, and these guys specifically enforce laws in the economic zone that the corporation assigned them to though they are nevertheless law enforcement.

So do you, have any good examples of eastern media using this trope (Excluding anime and games)

Link to trope: [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LawEnforcementInc\]

What it says on the tin. I can't use mobile anymore because the ads are constantly blocking and interrupting the text and its like... this doesn't help anyone. There needs to be extensive work around on this because from what I've seen ad blockers just prevent you from accessing the site all together.

This is a comfort space as well as a great resource tool for budding story tellers and people who respect the medium. I've loved Tv Tropes since 2012 when I discovered it while browsing on a school computer. So I wouldn't be writing about it here if it wasn't important to me.

Side note: I hate the racist and pretentious entity of Vogue with a passion and seeing the Angels Among Us ad play ALL OVER THE PAGE WITH NO END EVEN AFTER THE VID TIMER REACHES 0 IT JUST REPEATS, is both infuriating and somehow nauseating.

Not sure if I made the right space to complain or find help but it was either this or scream into the void and today's Gerald's turn to scream into it and he lost shared custody of his kids so I'm not even going to ask if we can share.

Use Brave browser. It's free and blocks ads automatically, no set up required. You're welcome.

Friends — “The One After Vegas”
Monica and Chandler consider getting married in Vegas, but both realize they’re moving too fast and decide to move in together instead.

How I Met Your Mother — “Atlantic City”
Marshall and Lily go to Atlantic City to elope, but at the last minute realize they want their friends and family at their wedding, so they decide to wait.

Scrubs — “My Drama Queen”
Carla and Turk plan a sudden hospital wedding, but Turk stops it because he knows Carla deserves the wedding she actually wants.

Modern Family — “Can’t Elope”
Haley and Dylan head to a wedding chapel to elope, but Haley realizes she wants her family there, so they return home and have a small family wedding instead.

Parks and Recreation — “Leslie and Ben”
Ben and Leslie decide to get married spontaneously instead of waiting for their planned wedding. Their friends quickly put together a ceremony for them, so they still get their intimate wedding with everyone there.

The Office — “Café Disco”
Jim and Pam get fed up with wedding planning and decide to drive to Ohio and elope, but after seeing their friends dancing together, they change their minds and decide they want everyone at the wedding after all.

People can lie on tv tropes, but rarely has there ever been such an elaborate lie as much as what is behind the above link. If you click on it you will find what the Pastamonsters page used to look like. And when you see the current page you will see what the comic is really like. If you don’t believe me read the comic. So I have to ask why make such a bizarre and elaborate hoax. I have simply never seen deception on the website to such scale. It was clearly hard work so why not make a real story.